Editorials

Housing prices in Colorado, Denver metro slip slightly in September

The median price of residential properties in Colorado — including distressed and nondistressed — in September was $230,000, down 2 percent from August and up 9 percent from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.

By comparison, the median price in August was $234,900 and $210,067 in September 2012.

Colorado single-family homes, condominiums and townhomes sold at an estimated annualized pace of 138,812 in September, up 2 percent from August's pace of 136,542 and 4 percent from September 2012's pace of 133,215, according to the report.

The national median sales price of all residential properties in September was $174,000, up 6 percent from $164,500 in September 2012.

However, residential buying trends have been influenced heavily by those with deep pockets, according to the survey.

Institutional investors — purchasing 10 or more properties in the past 12 months — accounted for 14 percent of all sales in September, up from 9 percent in August.

Forty-nine percent of the sales in September were all-cash purchases nationwide, the highest level since March 2012.

Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, said the housing market continues to skew in favor of investors, "particularly deep-pocketed institutional investors, and other buyers with cash."

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"While the institutional investors are pulling back their purchases in many of the higher-priced markets — places like San Francisco, Washington, New York, Seattle and Sacramento — they are continuing to ramp up purchases in markets where the median prices are still below $200,000," said Blomquist.

These cities include Jacksonville, Fla.; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; St. Louis; and Dallas.

By comparison, institutional investors accounted for 6 percent of all sales in the Denver-Aurora area in September and 7 percent of all sales in Colorado in September. All-cash sales accounted for 31 percent of the purchases in Colorado in September and 26 percent of the sales in the metro area.

The Denver-Aurora metro area had a median price in September of $247,000 — above the median prices of markets where institutional investors are ramping up purchases, according to RealtyTrac. The median price in the Denver-Aurora metro area was $250,000 in August and $224,900 in September 2012.

In the Denver-Aurora area, single family homes, condominiums and townhomes sold at an estimated annualized pace of 75,342 in September, up 2 percent from August's pace of 73,842 and 5 percent from September 2012's pace of 71,504.

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